What is the Meaning of Freedom and Liberty

American Freedom

In order to understand American Freedom in its proper context it is important to understand the events that lead up to the Pilgrims/Puritans leaving England.

This means going back to the time of Martin Luther and understanding life in Europe during the time of the Renaissance. During this time, it was thought that man was the measure of all things. Through this, life was hard as all had to work and provide anything required by the King – as the people lived under tyranny.

Martin Luther, however, made a radical step out in faith as he posted his 95 thesis and made God’s grace widely know to all. He basically helped replace the belief in humanism into the belief and truth that “Man’s chief purpose is to Glorify God” and to serve Him in all aspects of life and work.

With this, many began to see that they could not serve the King and God. Truly learning the Biblical Principle and understanding “You shall have no other God” made the Puritans realize they needed a change. In reading History of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, you will understand how the Pilgrims left England and moved to Holland. Then, after 12 years, returned to England for supplies and a ship…and again slipped away from the tyranny of the King to settle in America.

The Pilgrims/Puritans arrived in Plymouth in 1620. Upon their arrival, they wrote the Mayflower Compact. This was the first written form of Government in the new world. It shows the importance they placed on the social contract. They recognized that God had made a covenant with His people, so they saw a need to make a covenant with one another. This was basically a covenant with one another to be governed. That is what set American apart from other countries.

Freedom

What does it mean to be free? Does it mean we do what we want when we want? No, it means to be free from something. A person may be free from something, but after a while, a person must eventually return to the community.

Liberty

What does liberty mean? Liberty describes the relationship among community members when the boundaries of unalienable rights are protected by individual conscience. Liberty can not exist without conscience and conscience is refined by religion.

“Our Constitution was only meant for a moral and religious people.” John Adams

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness – these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens…Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” George Washington Farewell address: 1796

Liberty is that voluntary self-control – doing what we want when we want – free from outside control, but without taking advantage of another person…. because we are guided by our conscience.

We just finished up a study on the Founding of the United States, so this will be perfect reinforcement and I love that we’ll be reading the founding documents! We watched/listened to the video and I made copies of the pages for the kids for next week. We read though the Mayflower Compact today, but will do it again with more thought next week! We do history Mon., Wed., Fri. so this will give us something to do! 🙂 Thanks so much for putting this together and we’re looking forward to it!

Emily, Lynn from Founders Academy is truly the master mind…i just had an idea…and she agreed to help me! I’m so excited to hear that you can use this! Please, send us feedback…and any way we can make this even better for you!!!

Great video Lynn. She made it very easy for even little ones to understand. I am not sure how much I will be able to do with my kids since they are both pretty young for this subject but we will try to participate as much as possible. I found some additional freebie resources for little ones that go along with the freedom Fridays that I will share in my post.

What a great and useful idea! I was just at a homeschool convention where Rick Green, from Wall Builders, was the keynote speaker. He really got me to thinking that I (never mind my children) really do not have a good grasp of how our government was formed or how it all works! Sad but true!

Anyway, I may not use it now, but I have added the link to my homeschool group’s facebook page as a resource, so maybe someone will join you.

I may have to do it over the summer, but thank you so much for the resource!

Michelle, I LOVE Wall Builders!!!! Thank you for sharing with others. WE still have a few weeks to go…and i will host the series in a prominent place on my blog and I have also dedicated a board on Pinterest to it…you can find it here: http://pinterest.com/momsmustardseed/freedom-fridays/

Thanks for the Pinterest tip. I’m following you. I’ll pass it on to my homeschool group. They are not all as media-struck as I am, but you never know. It may hit someone at just the right time! Thanks again!

This link was posted to my Facebook Homeschool group by a member. I share your enthusiasm and commend you for your dedication to Him and for your patriotism. I will share with you that I will be using this valuable resource with my children and I have encouraged everyone in both my Homeschool group and on my wall to do the same, whether they homeschool or not. KUDOS!

thank you so much for putting the time and effort into this and then sharing it for free with us. My husband and I can’t wait to work through this with our 15 year old. My husband was sworn in as a legal immigrant in 2000. He loves learning more and more about our great nation’s founding!

Pam, you are more than welcome. We originally were going to have one more lesson, but that has not been created, yet. However, I hope to create more lessons for other subjects in the future. Please, come back and provide your feedback. many blessings!

Rebecca, thank you so much for the wonderful lesson plan! It seems so difficult to find history lessons that teach the truth about the founding of America. Not sure if you’ve seen Kirk Cameron’s “Monumental”, but that was documentary on another wonderful piece of American history that our family truly enjoyed.

Laurie, Yes, I have seen Monumental, it is so good, isn’t it? These lessons will help any family – Lynn from Founder’s Academy was such a blessing to help put these together. Please, let me know if there is anything you would like to have added to them. Each one has a video (some have two) and a worksheet. Enjoy and come back to let me know what your family learns.